


The High Way to Hell (FAD) Drabbles

by acareeroutofrobbingbanks



Series: The High Way to Hell [11]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Drabbles, Fluff, M/M, Random - Freeform, tags to be updated, thwth extras
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-29 23:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14483199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acareeroutofrobbingbanks/pseuds/acareeroutofrobbingbanks
Summary: You know the drill. Drabbles and extra stories set in THWTH universe





	1. I'll Be There For You ('Cause You're There for Me Too)

            They took Patrick to a regular hospital. It was early enough in the morning that they didn't even start to worry about making sound check on time until they had been in the waiting room three hours and Patrick was starting to clutch at his chest when he breathed. Once all the adrenaline was gone it made room for the hurt to move into, and his breathing was shallow while they waited ever longer in the urgent care waiting room.

            “Should've gone to the ER,” Pete muttered for the umpteenth time that morning.

            “Darling,” Patrick said dryly. “This isn't an emergency. It just hurts.”

            “Yeah, but we could've been in and out of an emergency room right now. This is urgent care. Shouldn't it be urgent?”

            “I'm not about to go in front of someone who's having a real emergency!” Patrick said. “We'll just. Give it a minute.”

            A minute turned into another hour which turned into noon before someone called Patrick's name. He stood up, and his whole band stood with him.

            “Guys,” Patrick said.

            “It's better if none of us goes off on our own right now,” Joe said, and Patrick sighed, and was followed into a well-lit doctor's office by all three of them.

            The doctor herself seemed unfazed.

            “Broken rib?” she said. “We'll get an x-ray just to be sure, but that's not too bad.” She surveyed Patrick's badly bruised face, his slight limp, general disheveledness, and the similarly beaten up state of his companions, and raised an eyebrow.

            “And you are sober, yes?” she asked.

            “More than I've been in a long time,” Patrick said, and she smirked.

            “It doesn't matter much, but it's good to know these things and warn the nurses in case.”

            “We're really not here to start any trouble,” Patrick assured her. “It's a complicated story, but not, like, a bar fight.”

            “If you say so,” she said. “Follow me.” And, when she saw the others still following, added “it's going to be very cramped, but oh well.”

            X-Rays were the worst part of it. Patrick had to twist in positions that he physically couldn't for the photos, until eventually the doctor sent Andy to help move him into place. Patrick’s eyes bulged, but he didn’t make any noises of pain. Pete could see his aura flare like crazy, and Joe could feel it through the bond, but it was over fast.

            The four of them were sent to another office that was clearly designed for A doctor and A patient. Andy and Joe stood in corners of the room and Pete leaned against the counter while Patrick sat on the examination table.

            “You know,” Patrick said. “You guys really don’t have to be here.”

            “We’re the moral support,” Joe said. The doctor came back in and saw all of them still there, then shook her head, still looking amused.

            “Well Mr. Stump, you were right, that’s a nasty break you’ve got there,” she said. “I can tape it up for you, but unfortunately broken ribs aren’t very friendly injuries. Mostly you’re just going to have to keep off it and let it heal on its own.”

            “When you say to keep off it, what all does that entail?” Patrick asked. The doctor looked amused.

            “Mostly it just means to use common sense,” she said. “You can’t have too much physical exertion until it heals up, so I would cancel any rock climbing or bungee jumping trips,” she smiled lightly, “and generally keep your workouts to a minimum. No marathons, no rough sex.”

            Joe snorted, and Patrick glared at him.

            “I’m in a band,” Patrick said. “Is there, um, any issue with performing?”

            “There shouldn’t be,” the doctor said. “But, as I said, use common sense. If you start to feel pain in your chest, take a break. Alright?”

            “Sounds good to me,” Patrick said. The doctor wrote a script for pain medication for him, and after some slightly illegal driving, they made it back to the tour on time. And Patrick was pleased to note that while the relieved looks cast at him were abundant, the hair ruffling was kept to a minimum.

***

            Ferrum flew out to see Joe. He probably could have gone to a regular hospital, as his mom always took him to his same human doctor as a kid, but they didn't want to take any risks. He played alright the first night, but by the time the show was over his spine felt like it was made of knives.

            Ferrum was waiting backstage, and as was her custom, she commandeered one of the back rooms and turned it into a small but functional doctor's office.

            “I won't drag you back to LA for an x-ray if it doesn't seem too bad,” she said, “but I have to check, and this might hurt.”

            Truth be told, Joe still wasn't entirely comfortable around Ferrum. He knew that this woman hadn't hurt him, that she was as good as good doctors got, but he still vividly remembered all the needles and pain, and associated it with her face, even though someone else had done it.

            So for this reason Joe was immensely grateful when he looked up, panicked, and saw that his whole band had followed him inside, and were standing watchfully by the door, out of the way but within arm’s reach. It was a safe feeling, with added warm fuzziness in that they knew, and they knew it was illogical, but they stayed anyway because they knew him.

            “I'm going to press on different parts of your back, and I want you to tell me where it hurts, or if it hurts,” Ferrum said. Joe nodded out of habit, though he was facedown.

            It hurt immediately when she pressed her hand down on the top knob of his spine. His back ached like he was being stabbed, and he told her so. Not in words so much as in growls, but the point got across nonetheless.

            “Mm, mmhm, I know, but hold on a moment longer. Where are you feeling this?”

            “In my fu- in my spine,” Joe growled.

            “Anywhere else?”

            Joe tried to really focus on the question and think before he responded.

            “No, just my back,” he said.

            “You’re certain?”

            “YES, why?”

            “That’s very good news,” Ferrum said, and when Joe glanced up, Pete nodded at him. She pressed down on the second bone in his spine, and the process started all over again.

            She determined that he hadn’t sustained any serious nerve damage but prescribed him what she called “werewolf strength” pain medication to handle it for a few days.

            “If the pain persists longer than a few days, come and see me in California,” she said. “But your bones are all in the proper place, and you should be able to heal up just fine.”

            “You ever hear of these things before?” Joe asked. For the first time since she had arrived, Ferrum looked disconcerted.

            “No, I haven’t,” she said. “I’ll ask around, but in the meantime, be careful.”

            The maternal quality of her warning was a little touching, even if Joe wasn’t sure it was warranted yet.

            After she left, Joe looked up at Pete who was grinning a more annoying than usual grin.

            “You did such a good job,” he said, ruffling Joe’s hair. The teasing was annoying, but marginally less embarrassing than treating his irrational fear with any sort of gravity. “How ‘bout we get you some ice cream as a reward?”

            Joe looked disparaging. Andy shrugged.

            “We did talk him down from dog treats,” he said by means of apology or explanation.

            “Are there ice cream shops open this late at night? Can we even get anything?” Joe asked.

            “We’re Fall Out Boy,” Patrick said, completely deadpan. “Pete has discovered through this that he can get just about anything he wants.”

***

            Andy did not think he had to go to a doctor until the day after, when the dull throbbing in his head had turned into a vicious headache that hadn’t gone away. It was hardly noticeable at first, pretty bad during the show when the pounding of the drums and the movement of muscles in his neck made him nauseous, and by morning simply moving to get out of his bunk made Andy run for the bathroom to vomit.

            He called Joe while still on the bathroom floor, and even with his eyes closed the lights seemed to pulsate. The phone was too loud, and Joe’s voice was too loud and the bus was too loud and though Andy could tell he was dehydrated, the thought of drinking anything just made his stomach roll over again.

            “You have any experience with concussion headaches?” Andy asked. He could feel blood pumping in his eyelids and focused on not throwing up again.

            “What’s wrong?” Joe asked. His voice was still too loud, but it was Joe. Andy swallowed with some difficulty before talking.

            “I guess you didn’t see it,” Andy said. “But I was unconscious because the demon-P- the one that looked like- the blonde fucker curb stomped me in the head. I didn’t think it was that bad, but…”

            “You want me to call a doctor?” Joe asked.

            “Maybe?” Andy said weakly. “I don’t know.”

            What Andy had expected was a call back saying that Ferrum would meet them at the next venue. What he had not predicted was the buses pulling over and the whole band crowding onto his bus. Carmilla had started to cry at some point because she didn’t quite grasp the idea of “Daddy’s sick” yet, and Patrick scooped her up and was rocking her in an instant. Joe pressed a cold bottle of water into his hands and Pete half-carried him onto the couch in the main area of the bus.

            “I’m fine,” Andy protested, but no one listened.

            “We called Ferrum and she said that there’s probably not much we can do but keep monitoring you,” Pete said. “But she’s hopeful that this won’t last long, especially if you stay hydrated. Er, both kinds of hydrated.”

            “I can hear you, honey, thanks,” Patrick said in a low voice, so as not to disturb Carmilla. “I was gonna get the little one to sleep first, if you don’t mind.”

            “I know, I know!” Pete said defensively.

            “Are you supposed to keep me awake?” Andy asked, a little skeptically.

            “Actually, no, we’re supposed to let you rest if you want,” Joe said. “But if you want to stay up and take it easy, I can absolutely kick your ass in any video game you have on this granola bus.”

            And the pain took another few days to go away completely, but it was easier to manage then.

***

            It took all of them an embarrassingly long time to notice the dreams. No one was sure if that was because Pete slept at absurd times, or because he planned it that way, but the rest of the band strongly suspected it was the latter.

            It was three nights later that Joe had what was not the first nightmare reminding him about the not-band, the demon doubles, but the first nightmare that wasn’t from his point of view.

            Joe’s dreams about the doubles were fleeting and unreal. In them, sometimes the Patrick-double grew to monstrous heights and crushed them, sometimes his own double just laughed and laughed an ear-tearing laugh. In one fleeting image, he simply looked into the mirror at his house and saw flat, black eyes staring back at him.

            This dream was different.

            In it, Joe was trapped, metal bars across his back holding him down and he could see three other prone shapes, all too far away, none of them moving. The Patrick double leaned in close and whispered “Soon,” them pressed his lips to the top of Joe’s head, making his skin crawl all over.

            And then he was alone, crying and shouting and trying to move the bars but they were too strong, impossible to budge. He was the only one who could help and he couldn’t help at all and for the rest of the dream, for what felt like hours, Joe was just trapped there, crying out for someone, anyone.

            Since Joe had dreams about the monsters too, he elected to let it go when he woke up. At first.

            Andy shared one of the first dreams, but it was too indistinct to really know what the fear was, or who’s dream it was. It was just the doubles laughing, looking terrifying, nothing of note.

            Patrick was the first to notice that something was really _wrong_. As he later explained, he was scared of the doubles, but he was more scared for Pete than anyone else. It didn’t make sense that he would be in his position, that he would watch himself go flying and feel so much fear from that.

            Just like Joe, the worst part of the nightmare was the agonizingly long time after he watched himself land on the pavement with a crunch. Being stuck under the bars, unable to move, screaming without being heard, and the anxious thrum in the back of his head that said, “they’re dead they’re dead they’re all dead.”

            Patrick struggled out of sleep panting and gasping, and he immediately rolled over and shook Pete awake.

            “Baby, baby, get up!” he said. Pete startled awake, blinked at Patrick once, then fell with his face in Patrick’s shoulder, shuddering. Patrick sat there and rubbed his back until Pete’s breaths got calmer, and they breathed in time until he fell back asleep.

            The next morning, Patrick tracked down Joe and Andy.

            “Pete dreams?” he asked, looking like he already knew the answer.

            “Are we all getting them?” Joe asked.

            “We should talk to him,” Andy said. Patrick was satisfied that they were all on the same page.

            There was an impromptu band meeting after the show that night. As soon as they were out of sight of the fans, Patrick took Pete’s hand, like he always did when they weren’t being watched. The walked back to their bus, talking quietly, occasionally glancing over their shoulders and stealing kisses. And once the two of them got onto the bus, Patrick kissed him long and hard again, just as the door opened and Joe and Andy got on.

            “Are we strategizing?” Pete asked.

            “Nope,” Joe said. “We are gonna have a super manly heart to heart and then hang out like buddies.”

            “We’re having a heart to heart?” Pete asked, with no small amount of trepidation. Patrick nodded.

            “We’ve been having dreams,” Andy said, his voice soft. And Pete groaned, his eyes closed.

            “Okay, look, guys, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

            “You don’t have to apologize, dipshit,” Joe said. He pulled him into a hug. “We’re here to tell you that we’re here for you, and it’s gonna be okay.”

            Pete stood still, not reciprocating the hug.

            “Um,” he coughed, still standing still, Joe still not moving. “Um, guys, that’s sweet and all, but really, I’m fine.”

            “The dream didn’t really feel fine,” Andy said mildly. Pete flushed.

            “It’s not a big thing,” he said.

            “Yeah, yeah, no homo except with your boyfriend, you don’t need to look so emasculated, dude, you’re in Fall Out Boy,” Joe said. He was unrelenting, and Andy joined him, both hugging Pete, who looked exceptionally embarrassed.

            “Guys,” he protested.

            “Accept the group hug,” Patrick advised. He wrapped his arms around Pete as well, and Pete groaned, then finally leaned in, pressing his face down into someone’s shoulder and letting someone rub his back. Slowly, he let his muscles loosen and loosen until he was slumped against his friends, boneless and deep breathing as he let himself be held up by other people.

            Somehow the four of them ended up on the couch, Pete’s legs draped over someone’s lap and his head resting in the crook of Patrick’s elbow so his hands could run through Pete’s hair.

            “Just so you know,” Pete mumbled, “I don’t need this.”

            “Yeah, you’re welcome,” Joe said.

            “Also, you don’t have to ‘no homo’ this,” Pete said.

            “You seemed insecure before we ended up in what is colloquially known as a cuddle puddle.”

            Pete snuggled in a little deeper while someone turned the TV on.

            “Yeah, whatever. I love you guys.”

            “Love you too.”


	2. Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete and Patrick got their happily ever after, got to drive off into the sunset and be together. But they still have to come out to some people. And come out, and come out, and come out... over and over, in many different ways. 
> 
> A story of coming out on purpose and coming out on accident, of coming out to loved ones and coming out to strangers, of getting outed and lying to not coming out, and of other people coming out for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So initially this was going to be a short, cutesy story about Pete and Patrick coming out to their parents over the holidays. But then, I was making some joke to my fiancee about how lame it was to post a holiday drabble in June, and then I realized hey, June=Pride month, so what if instead of just that it was a general story about coming out, and all the different times in your life when you have to come out. And then when I was trying to think of ideas said fiancee suggested I think of all the different times I've had to come out to strangers or acquaintances or times when I couldn't come out and I started to get... upset. So this ended up being much longer and much heavier than I initially intended, because I didn't want it to be, like, hella dark, but I also didn't want to sugar coat it.   
> I think I tend to write in a semi-alternate universe where homophobia just. Isn't a thing. It's my fictional universe and I don't want to deal with that, so while it gets mentioned, it's not really a big issue. But for this story, I decided just once to kind of delve into it. I think a lot of times I gloss over the fact that Fall Out Boy is made up of Gen X kids who had to grow up seeing stuff about Matthew Shepard on TV and even if they grew up in Chicago, the world they went to high school in was a very different one than what I knew. Most of these vignettes aren't especially dark, but I did want to put up a warning just in case
> 
> TW: slurs, homophobia, reference to violence

            “So, what now?” Joe asked. Pete and Patrick had taken off - not that Joe blamed them at all, given everything they'd gone through that day, hell, everything they'd gone through that week- but they hadn't exactly said much before disappearing.

            The rest of the tour was still hanging out around the enormous, burning dragon corpse. It was a hell of a lot bigger and cooler than any of the drunken bonfires Joe remembered from high school and the early days of Fall Out Boy. The tops of the flames looked mountain high, and the fire was burning almost exclusively white against the night. It was unbelievably cool looking, and also, Mark fucking Hoppus was there. High school Joe could never have even dreamt of something this cool.

            “I feel like Smokey the Bear would have some very choice curse words to say if we left this thing unattended,” Gabe said, glancing at the dragon. “So, um, if somebody wants to go on that marshmallow run? I’m not gonna have any unless there are some vegan ones in the store, but it might be nice to have something to kill time with.”

            “I forsee us being here for a while,” Ryan said.

            “So,” the aforementioned Mark fucking Hoppus said. “What was with all the, ah, dramatic kissing?”

            Joe felt a small surge of panic. What was he supposed to say? ‘Our singer and bassist have had sexual tension for years and they’re finally consummating whatever the fuck their relationship is and probably dating’? It sounded weird. It also wasn’t really Joe’s story to tell. But quite a few people looked interested, and all eyes were on Joe, and when he gave Andy a “help me” glance, Andy just shrugged.

            “Beats me,” Joe said with a laugh. “Hopefully they’re going to go fuck, but who can really say what Pete Wentz is up to, right?”

            People laughed a little, and before someone could go into a _no but seriously-_ Joe straightened up a bit.

            “I can go get some smores stuff. Do we want hot dogs too?” He caught Gabe’s eye. “And veggie dogs.”

            Pete and Patrick could deal with the rest of the bands in their own time.

 ***

            After Patrick “moved in” with Pete (“I already live here!”) they spent a week in bed. Pete already had a favorite grocery delivery company in LA, and they ordered in pizza and Chinese food, or made grilled cheese sandwiches and lazed on the couch, watching bad TV and old movies. They talked a lot of the time, they had a lot of sex, but mostly they just reveled in being close to each other. They sat wrapped around one another on the couch and kissed absently, out of focus. It was so good that it was easy to forget the outside world.

            The outside world, however, did not forget them.

            Sometimes when the two of them stayed downstairs late enough for Entertainment Tonight or some other show to come on, they’d hear about the scandalous Pete Wentz and Ashley Simpson breakup, or wonder where in the world Pete Wentz had gone.

            “Imagine,” Patrick laughed, pulling Pete in closer by his shirt collar, “If they knew the truth.”

            It was funny, mostly, but sometimes it freaked Pete out. Because he could easily imagine if people knew the truth, and he really really REALLY didn’t want to deal with the fallout of a tell-all article about him and Patrick.

            One day the pizza guy came early. It was a different person every time they ordered because their hours of the day had ceased to mean much without a schedule, but Pete was growing to recognize some of the teenagers who showed up in red shirts. The two of them were hanging out in the front yard because it was private, and no one was out, and Hemmy wanted to play outside. The dog ran around chasing butterflies or chipmunks or something else adorable and easy to terrorize, and Patrick pushed Pete down onto the grass and was laying on top of him, his weight familiar and comforting as he hovered with his lips inches from Pete’s.

            “Uh, excuse me? I got a supreme pizza here for Wentz?”

            Pete shoved Patrick off him - not the best physical memory to dredge back up - and jumped to his feet. Hemingway growled from the other side of the yard, and Pete could feel that his hair was a mess, his face was flushed, and this acne ridden kid had definitely just seen him about to make out with Patrick Stump.

            “Yeah?” Pete said. His voice was a squeaky whisper, like a very old door that was still creaking with its last breath.

            But as the panic slowly faded and his heartbeat sank down to human levels, he saw that the delivery guy looked bored. Glazed in the eyes.

            “Twenty-two fifty-seven,” the kid said.

            Pete pulled two twenties out of his wallet and breathlessly told the pizza guy to keep the change. At this, the kid nodded a little, looking vaguely excited for the first time, and left. On a bike, which explained why Pete hadn’t heard him coming in.

            He hadn’t thought he was still visibly freaking out, but he stiffened when he felt Patrick’s hand on his waist, his arm wrapped around Pete’s back.

            “I don’t even think he noticed,” Patrick said. “If he did, he didn’t care.”

            “What if he got a picture while I wasn’t looking?” Pete asked.

            The thing was that he wasn’t even so worried for himself. Pete was fairly convinced that nothing media related could happen to him that could be worse than the dick pic incident. But Patrick shouldn’t have to deal with a shitstorm like that, Pete had seen the Lance Bass bullshit that had gone down, he didn’t want anything like that anywhere near him. But Patrick just laughed.

            “We’ll be okay. I could smell that guy’s weed from ten feet away.” Patrick kissed Pete deeply, until some of the anxiety melted away. “But if you’re nervous, we can definitely move this inside.”

            The pizza that Pete had just spent forty dollars on got cold.

 ***

            The next time Patrick came out was on accident. It felt unbearably childish to celebrate anniversaries other than the year mark outside of high school but… well, Patrick couldn’t help but notice it was a month since the dragon incident. And he was already at the grocery store, and already thinking of Pete because he was always thinking of Pete. And it wasn’t as though he was getting him a Rolex and a big fancy dinner at a steak restaurant. He just saw the display of cakes and thought of Pete’s ever present sweet tooth and felt an urge to be cute and domestic. He was getting a lot of those.

            “How long do the personalized cakes take?” Patrick asked. The old woman behind the counter smiled at him fondly.

            “Depends on the cake, but if we already have one made we can ice one up for you in an hour or so. Give you time to finish your shopping.”

            Patrick beamed at her.

            “Can I just get a happy anniversary cake?” he said. He was probably blushing because it was stupid and childish to celebrate month-a-versaries but maybe Pete would think it was funny or cute and anyway there would be CAKE, so he figured it wasn’t that bad.

            “Sure thing, deary,” the woman said. She picked out a cake with Patrick’s approval, and as she went to work, said: “So, is this for your wife? Girlfriend?”

            “My boyfriend, actually,” Patrick said. It just slipped out, but he was happy and excited enough that he didn’t mind too much. The woman behind the counter, however, froze. The sweet smile was gone from her face, and instead she looked almost angry.

            “Oh,” she said.

            It took Patrick too long to realize what was wrong with the picture. He tried to start a conversation with her again, but she just wouldn’t speak to him.

            Patrick did as she initially suggested and wandered the grocery store. Sure, they could deliver food, but there was something both domestic and cathartic about buying groceries, and the methodical, aisle by aisle process was soothing.

            After an hour, he walked back to the bakery where a different worker handed him his cake, looking unsure as he passed the box over the counter.

            “Sarah didn’t want to finish it, for some reason,” the guy said when Patrick asked what had happened to the older woman. “But I promise, the cake’s fine.”

            Patrick peered in through the clear plastic top. The cake looked fine, but his stomach churned like he had eaten lava. He forced out a sticky “thank you,” and payed for the cake. He got the rest of his groceries, then dropped the cake off at a homeless shelter, and didn’t mention a word about month-a-versaries to Pete when he got home.

            It was sort of a childish thing to celebrate anyway.

 ***

            Andy was reveling in some alone time, and by alone time, he meant time spent bonding and reintegrating with all of Fuck City, playing with Carmilla, going to Packers games, and generally never being alone for a second, but not going near any supernatural or Fall Out Boy related bullshit for months. The house was always bustling with people, with energy, noise, football, and metal music, but the change of energy was a breath of fresh air.

            The one major change was there being a lot more girlfriends over at Fuck City than Andy had grown to expect.

            It was inevitable, he supposed. It wasn’t like there was a “No Girls Allowed” sign painted on the house. (To be fair, the bachelors’ den often drove girls away on its own, but that wasn’t the point.) Andy was raising a little girl in the house. He was raising her as gender neutrally as possible, but she picked out the pink and purple tricycle all by herself. But the relationships continued to nag at the already worried hole in Andy’s heart that was years old.

            Plus, it made for a fair bit of confusion when Carmilla walked in on Matt and a girl from the gym “getting to know each other” in Matt’s bedroom.

            “Sorry about that, sorry,” Matt said. His shirt was on backwards when he ran out, looking apologetic between Carmilla and Andy. “I didn’t even think to lock the door.”

            “Well, somebody didn’t think to knock,” Andy said, ruffling Carmilla’s hair. “What do we say?”

            “Sorry, Bat,” she said. The tip of her thumb was wandering very close to the edge of her lips, but she wasn’t quite sucking it.

            “She probably doesn’t even know what you were doing,” Andy said in an undertone. Forgetting, apparently, that his daughter had the same super hearing that he did.

            “That’s not true!” she said. “They were kissing like Uncle Pete and Patrick, right?”

            Matt coughed so loud it sounded like choking. Andy closed his eyes.

            “Yeah, sweetie,” he said, his voice a little high. “Go and play, okay?”

            Andy heard Carmilla run off. He didn’t open his eyes.

            “Uncle Pete and Patrick?” Matt asked. Andy grimaced.

            “I think they wanted to spread the good news themselves, but yeah,” he shrugged. “Don’t ask, because I have no idea how that one happened.”

            “Do they usually look like _that_ when they’re kissing?” Matt asked with a snort. He bumped Andy’s shoulder as he left the room too.

            A few weeks later, when Pete and Patrick dropped by to say hi to Carm on their way to Chicago, Pete acted incredibly offended (“I wanted to tell Mix!”) but privately, Andy thought they might have been grateful that the rugrat broke the news for them.

 ***

            Pete was out one night to meet up with old friends. He didn’t have a lot of fond memories from high school or college outside of the music scene, not really. Usually when an “old friend” wanted to hang out with him, it was just some New Trier douchebag who had found his number in the student directory and wanted to prove to their friends that they totally knew Pete Wentz in high school, never mind how awful they had been to the not-yet famous Pete at the time. Still, this time it was a guy named Todd that he had been on the soccer team with, and Pete almost kind of missed him. In any case, Patrick told him he should probably get out of the house, so Pete reluctantly went downtown to go and meet the guy for dinner.

            At the last second, he chickened out and begged Patrick to at least go on the drive with him, and possibly sensing just how anxious he was, Patrick obliged. He kissed Pete through the window of the driver’s side after Pete got out and promised to pick him up later, and while Pete’s good feelings pretty much evaporated while Patrick drove away, he reasoned it was still better than parking in LA.

            Until he realized that Patrick had dropped him off a few blocks away from the restaurant. His ditzy, darling boyfriend. Still, it wasn’t a bad walk, so Pete started off with hopes that the night air might clear his head. It was pleasantly cool out after dark, and not as loud as he thought LA usually was. It felt almost peaceful.

            “Hey, faggot!”

            Pete went still, and for a moment was absolutely positive he was about to die. No vampires or anything cool, no hero’s death, he was going to get jumped two blocks away from the restaurant where he was supposed to spend his evening.

            Even though all of the blood in his veins had turned to ice, he forced his icy body to turn around anyway. He was fae, dammit, and he could put up a fight, and he-

            -was blinded by a flashbulb as a big and impressive camera went off right in his face, his fists already clenched to fight. He stumbled backwards, blinked a few times, and while the glare in his eyes died down, he saw a sleazy looking guy with a body type like linguini, not even remotely threatening, wielding a camera.

            “Where are you going tonight, Pete?!” he shouted. Pete lifted one shaky middle finger at the camera guy, smiled his most acidic smile, and staggered down the street. His heart just wouldn’t stop hammering and he could hear his blood rushing in his ears and he really thought he was going to die but he was fine fine fine-

            Pete leaned on the wall outside the restaurant, eyes shut while he took deep breaths. Paparazzi. He got called faggot all the time for wearing tight jeans, it was nothing new. Except this time it could’ve been right. Could’ve been deadly. And Pete, fae, couldn’t say anything to refute it.

            “Hey, you okay?”

            The voice was vaguely familiar, and when Pete looked up, his memory of Todd got a little stronger. He had a distant understanding of panic attacks and covered for Pete when he spaced a little too much during practice. He had warm eyes and was the fastest moving goalie Pete had ever met in his life. He was safe.

            “Yeah,” Pete said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just…”

            Todd shrugged, good natured. “I know, yeah. We can go somewhere else, if you prefer?”

            “This is fine,” Pete said. They went inside, ordered food. Caught up like normal people did. Todd talked about the girl he’d been seeing, close to the buying-a-ring stage, and Pete surprised himself by being happy for the guy.

            “What about you?” Todd asked. “You seeing anyone?”

            Pete nearly choked on the water he was drinking. He shrugged.

            “You know how it is,” he said, which wasn’t an answer at all, but it made Todd change the subject all the same.

 ***

            They only came out to the taxi driver who took them to the airport because he clearly had never heard of Fall Out Boy in his life. The man was black, at least eighty, and had an accent like he might have grown up speaking Spanish. From the radio, Mozart was blaring with subwoofers like it was Metallica. The whole cab smelled like patchouli and Pete was clearly having the time of his life.

            “So, after your time in Tahiti,” Pete said. “Then where did you go?”

            “Well, the cruise eventually realized I had not booked a room, but they couldn’t leave me in the middle of the ocean,” the man said. “So they had to take me all the way back to Paris!”

            Patrick laughed along with Pete and the man. Pete mouthed that he was a liar (which was obvious) but the stories were entertaining nonetheless, and Pete was having fun.

            “So, you two going to see girlfriends?” the man asked. Patrick tensed a little, but Pete, maybe just overwhelmed by the good mood in the cab, said, “No, actually, we’re dating each other.”

            The man was quiet for a second, and Patrick really hoped they weren’t going to have to get out and call another cab, because they were in the middle of nowhere. But eventually he spoke again.

            “Oh, like, gay?”

            “Yeah, pretty gay,” Pete said. No point wasting time on the word “bisexual,” apparently. But the cab driver, while his eyes were a little wider in the rearview mirror, just nodded. It was an exaggerated nod, but it was encouraging.

            “I know some gay men,” he said. “You guys know a Tony?”

            Patrick glanced at the man’s reflection in the mirror, then at Pete, who looked just as bewildered.

            “Tony who?” he asked.

            “Just, like, Tony. I don’t know him too well. He lives in LA though.”

            Patrick blinked.

            “Um, there are over a million people living in-”

            “Don’t think I know him,” Pete said. The driver nodded.

            “Huh. So, which one of you is the girl?”

            Patrick turned slowly to look at Pete. He mouthed _“Is this a fucking joke?_ ” and Pete shoved him.

            “Ah, neither of us is a girl. That’s kind of the point,” Pete said.

            “Yeah, but in the bedroom, ya know,” the driver said, one hand hanging loosely out the window. “Which one a ya plays the lady? Who catches and who pitches, if ya know what I mean?”

            It was clear that he was trying to be good natured. He didn’t mean any offense and was really genuinely trying to be friendly. Which was why Patrick later felt bad about how he reacted.

            “No, I don’t know what you mean,” Patrick said. “Please. Elaborate.”

            “Babe,” Pete said.

            “You know,” the driver started to look uncomfortable. “I just meant…”

            “Are you asking which one of us takes dick up his ass?” Patrick asked loudly.

            “I just…”

            “You usually do it missionary, or doggy style?”

            “I didn’t mean to offend anybody,” he said.

            “Well, so you know for next time,” Patrick said. He wasn’t ready to feel especially forgiving. “Remember that that shit’s none of your business.”

            Pete looked exhausted when they got out at the airport, but he pecked Patrick chastely on the cheek when no one was looking anyway.

            “I love you, darling,” he said. “But let’s just say we’re friends next time a stranger asks.”

            Patrick really didn’t mind that idea so much.

 ***

            The two of them agreed not to tell management. Mostly, they decided it was none of management’s fucking business. Maybe it would be better to tell someone at Island Def Jam records, a publicist, possibly, just someone who could handle the aftermath if they ever did get outed. But they didn’t really feel like it, and so they never did.

            But there were people they worked with that Pete wanted to tell. Coming out to Diaz was a non-issue (“Wow, that explains a lot.” “Oh, fuck you, dude.”) and as it turned out, plenty of people had heard that Pete and Patrick were now PeteandPatrick through the grapevine. They did, however, have to pull some people aside who were less directly involved with the Dragon Incident.

            “I thought you were already out as bisexual,” Marcus said. Pete had invited him out to lunch, and even though no one was listening, he sank a little lower into his seat. Please, he thought, if there was a God, let said god take pity on Pete and not leave paparazzi in the restaurant.

            “Not, like, really,” Pete said. “And that isn’t the big takeaway. The point is yes, I’m bisexual, and also I’m dating Patrick.”

            Marcus raised his eyebrows and sat back.

            “Is that the best idea?” he asked.

            “What does that mean?” Pete asked.

            “You’re not the first band I’ve ever babysat,” Marcus said. “I’m saying inter-band relationships can get kinda hairy.”

            “I’m very very sure about Patrick,” Pete said. “And- what band did you baby- security guard for with members secretly dating?”

            “In the nineties, nobody was out,” Marcus said sagely. “It’s no big thing.”

            “Right,” Pete said. “Okay, cool. Right. So, you’re cool with it?”

            Marcus glared at him.

            “Yes, I’m cool with it,” he said. “Long as you two are happy. And you could stand to chill out on stage. One of these days some girl’s gonna break one of my ribs trying to touch you.”

            “Marcus,” Pete said with a bright smile. “I will never chill out on stage.”

 ***

            The bus, after a month and half of touring, was completely out of whiskey, and Patrick decided to go to a bar rather than buy another bottle. He just wanted a couple of drinks, not to get drunk, and Pete was hanging out with Travie, so he went alone. Given the average age of Fall Out Boy fans and the fact that he wasn’t exactly a knockout, he didn’t expect to be hit on.

            Yet, after about an hour or so of nursing his drink at the bar and basking in the glow of _no one talking to him_ , someone sat next to him.

            “Hey,” the girl said. She was pretty. She was a little older than Patrick, with long blonde hair and a hopeful expression. Too cute for Patrick, he thought like a reflex, but she was undeniably interested. “I saw you from over there,” she said with a gesture. “Do you, ah, wanna get me a drink?”

            If he had met her six months ago, the answer would have been a resounding yes, but as it was, she was just another pretty girl. There was no real emotion behind that.

            “I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “You’re really lovely, but I’m just drinking for one tonight.”

            “Why?” she pouted. “Are you gay or something?”

            Patrick thought about this. He thought about the fact that they weren’t in LA, but in the middle of nowhere Midwest, and he was alone. There were a lot of guys in this bar, and even though Patrick had some pretty impressive knives strapped to his belt, he wasn’t there to get in a fight. He didn’t realize quite how… bristled he felt until she asked.

            “I’ve got a girlfriend,” he said quickly. “P-Paige. We just had a fight. But I should go back home to her.”

            He probably wasn’t in any danger, he knew that. But it was better to be careful, just in case.

 ***

            But the biggest step out of the closet was, naturally, coming out to their parents. For Pete, it was easy.

            He had told his mom about Mikey one night when she asked what was wrong, because he was fae. Growing up with a faery in the house, everyone was unfailingly honest. You didn't ask what your Christmas present was unless you wanted an answer, because there was no use lying with Pete around. So, in the fall of 2005, when Dale said, “What's wrong, sweetie?” Pete spilled his guts about Mikey.

            He had already unofficially come out, was the point. Just because this time it was official didn't make that big of a difference.

            Pete came home for the holidays early. They had essentially toured straight through Thanksgiving, again, so Christmas was the first time in ages Pete had had to really talk to his family. He and Patrick had come to the decision to talk to their parents separately, and then divide up Christmas between the families however they saw fit afterward.

            So, after the two of them said goodbye at the airport and took separate hundred-dollar cab rides to the separate suburbs they grew up in, Pete announced himself minutes after walking in the door.

            “I didn’t want to bring this up earlier,” Pete said as he was taking his coat off. His mother already looked apprehensive as she stood, arms crossed, watching him. “But I was hoping I could bring someone to Christmas this year. Someone I’ve been seeing.”

            “I thought you broke up with that Ashley girl,” Dale said. She had gone from apprehensive all the way up to nervous. In truth, Pete didn’t blame her. He remembered the year Mr. White interrupted Christmas dinner to drag Jeanae home by her hair, almost literally. So he smiled appeasingly at his mom.

            “It’s not Ashley, and you already know this person,” he said. He was practically bouncing with excitement, and his mom must have noticed, because she gave him a fond look.

            “Who’s coming to Christmas, sweetie?” she asked.

            “Patrick.”

            Pete felt like the swelling sensation in his chest must be ready to explode as he said it, and his mom lit up like the Christmas tree already glowing in the living room.

            “Peter!”

            Pete was grinning so wide his face hurt, and his mother dragged him into a hug before he could kick off his snow boots. (he felt stupid wearing them in LA, but in Chicago they were almost necessary before he walked out of O’Hare.)

            “Oh, Pete, I’m so happy for you,” she said. She ran a hand through his hair, and Pete melted into the touch. “How did it happen? Tell me everything!”

            She led him into the living room, snowy boot-prints forgotten, and Hilary chose that exact moment to lean against the door frame.

            “How did what happen?” she asked.

            “Patrick and I are dating,” Pete said. In a house like his, where everyone grew up without lies or sugar coating, there was often no prelude to big news. Hilary also started grinning.

            “Really? Awesome; Andrew owes me fifty bucks.”

            “You bet on us? Wait, Andrew bet against us?”

            “No, we all knew it was inevitable,” Hilary said. “But Andrew bet the two of you wouldn’t get your shit together until you hit thirty.”

            Pete couldn’t even find it in himself to be pissed off. He felt sort of dreamy and giddy, because every time he told someone new, he got to tell them that he was _dating Patrick_. There was a lot to be happy about.

            Patrick was busy that night, but Pete and his family celebrated. After congratulations, they ate dinner, Pete recounted the story of the dragon and nearly losing Patrick forever (classic Pete) and it was an otherwise normal night in the Wentz household.

 

            Patrick had a bit of a thornier situation. He was close with his family, he loved his mom and siblings and dad and adored spending time with them. But he didn't tell them everything. How could he tell them everything? He couldn't go in with “everyone in my band is magic,” so he couldn't exactly explain that he was literally dating the city of Chicago at one point. He had briefly mentioned to his mom that he was “seeing someone” and never elaborated on it.

Because even after Chicago, he wasn't sure if he was bisexual. That felt like a big label to commit to, and he hadn't really had feelings for any other men. (Or simply not women.)

(Then again, maybe he had? There was a lot to look back on, a lot to question, but frankly he didn’t know, couldn’t pinpoint it, so it didn’t matter.)

            The point was that Patrick hadn’t come out when he started dating Chicago. He hadn’t come out at any point while he was dating Chicago. Nor had he come out afterward, because he thought, at first, that Chicago was a fluke. He certainly hadn’t come out when he realized that he was in love with Pete. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. Frankly, he didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining something he didn’t think was going to happen or work out.

            And then, after he and Pete had started dating… he had just been busy. They paused to breathe for a few weeks, toured, went into a series of Jingle Ball type concerts in major cities all over the country, did interviews, planned more tours, had hasty and unsatisfying bathroom sex that left them with knees smelling like mop fluid, and barely had time for more than a call home to check in and make sure no one was dead and Pat knew when they would next be on TV, because she liked to DVR the performances. There was, frankly, no time at all to talk to his family.

            So, when Patrick came home on the same flight as Pete and took a different hundred dollar taxi up to Glenview before Christmas, he still wasn’t sure what his plan was. He had (embarrassingly, in the dead of night) Google searched “how to come out to your parents,” but the articles were largely geared towards fourteen year olds and didn’t actually provide him with very helpful information. The one thing he took from all his reading was that, if nervous, one of the suggestions was to wait for the subject to come up naturally in conversation. Patrick liked this suggestion, and figured that eventually someone had to ask if he was seeing someone. It was a family holiday, after all, and he had broken up with Anna well over a year ago. Someone would ask.

 

            But they didn’t.

 

            Patrick got set up in his childhood bedroom for the holidays, where all the old band posters had mercifully been taken down to turn into a relatively plain guest bedroom with no signs it had belonged to a teenage boy once at all, save for a hole in the wall that had been tastefully covered up with a small ottoman, because the hole was at roughly foot level, if that foot was being kicked in really intense frustration. The sweaty sock smell was gone, though, as were the history books and any stains on the duvet. He was led to his bedroom fairly soon after he walked in the door and felt a little lump in his throat when he saw the double bed that he was going to have, until he worked up to a conversation, all to himself.

            “Hey, mom,” he began, before she had walked away. She turned to him, looking surprised, and Patrick chickened out.

            “It’s good to see you,” he said. And they hugged, and she said she was going to go order pizza that night, and the thought of real Chicago pizza was good enough that Patrick didn’t really care about anything else.

            He called Pete that night from the front porch, shivering a little in the frigid air because he hadn’t put on a coat.

            “My mom wants you to come over as soon as possible,” Pete said. “She says she wants to see you now that you’re officially part of the family. How’d it go on your end?”

            Patrick leaned against the wall of the house, exhaling for a long time and watching his breath cloud out into the air.

            “I didn’t tell them,” he said. Pete sounded confused, a little, but not offended.

            “Why not?” Pete asked.

            “It just didn’t come up,” Patrick said. “I don’t want to, say, sit my mom down like I’m telling her I’m dying of cancer, or something. It’ll come up eventually.”

            “Okay, babe,” Pete sighed. “But I miss you.”

            “I miss you too,” Patrick said. “And I love you.”

            “Love you too. G’night.”

            But it didn’t come up the next day. Not while Patrick helped his mom bake, or when Kevin came in with his fiancee, or while they watched bad Christmas movies. Not when their mom nervously mentioned a potential boyfriend, only to be fervently encouraged by her kids. Not when weddings of distant cousins were discussed, or when it was mentioned that the grandparents might come over. Not once.

            There had to be an organic place to slip it in into conversation, Patrick was sure of it. But he wasn’t finding it.

            “Babe, Christmas is in a couple days,” Pete said. “You have to tell her sometime.”

            “I will!” Patrick said. “It’s just hard, okay?”

            “Okay,” Pete said. He didn’t get it, that was clear in his voice, but what was Patrick to do?

            The next day, he told Pete to come over for Christmas Eve dinner. Pete asked if Patrick had told his mom, and Patrick hung up.

            When the cab pulled up outside, and everyone was already in the kitchen, working on different dishes and side dishes, Patrick still hadn’t said anything. He was also in the kitchen, and he could see the cab out the window. He was chopping up apples for pie, and his knife slipped, slicing his palm open.

            “FUCK,” he yelled, and he dropped the knife and made for the sink.

            “Jeez, kid, you okay,” Kevin stared at all the blood pouring into the sink. “You want to go to the hospital?”

            Patrick wrinkled up his nose. “No, I’ve had worse, this is nothing. Um. Hey, Mom, is it cool if I bring someone to dinner tonight?”

            “Oh,” Pat was hovering over his shoulder. She was trying to look at the wound, but it really wasn’t bad. The soap stung a little as he scrubbed, trying to be both quick and thorough. “Um, of course, sweetie. Who-”

            “Like, as a date,” Patrick said. “I was going to bring a date.”

            “Who are you bringing?” Pat asked.

            “Pete and he’s outside,” Patrick said. “Also, I like guys. Ah. Could you get me a towel?”

            There was a booming knock at the door.

            “I’ll go get that, then,” Megan said. From the other room, he could hear Megan greeting Pete, and Pete coming in.

            “Sorry, you’re dating Pete? Pete Wentz?”

            “The one and only,” Patrick said. He felt lightheaded in a way that nothing to do with all the blood in the sink, turning the yellowing curls of potato peelings red. “I just. Didn’t really have a chance to mention it earlier.”

            “Pete!” Pat turned into her hostess self and pulled Pete into a hug.

            “Hey, Pat!” Pete said, hugging her tightly back. “And hi there, Patrick.” He said his name hesitantly, and Patrick realized he probably could have played this off for a while. Fucking Pete. “Why are you-?”

            “Bleeding,” Patrick said, holding up his gory hand. “Knife slipped. I was just telling my mom that you were on your way over. As my date.”

            “Literally just,” Kevin agreed. “Speaking of, how did that happen? I have got to hear this story.”

            There wasn’t really time to freak out the first night. Pat already loved Pete, and there were no issues from Megan and Kevin, predictably. But Pete excused himself early, even went back to his parents’ house rather than staying with Patrick in his bedroom, the suckup, and Pat grabbed Patrick’s arm.

            “I didn’t know you were interested in… men,” she said. Patrick deflated.

            “I didn’t really know how to tell you,” he said. She pulled him into a long hug, stroking his back through his t-shirt.

            “Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “You know I love you no matter what, right?”

            “Yes,” Patrick said, “But…”

            He wasn’t sure what all was in the protest. _But you asked me once in private if you thought Kevin might be gay and you sounded really freaked out, not that you had a problem with it but that you were afraid. But I remember getting a David Bowie poster and seeing you look concerned. But you talk about gay people sometimes like they have cancer, like it’s something pitiable. But I remember coming home from school to see you crying over some poor kid who got murdered for being gay and talking about how you couldn’t even imagine what it was like to be his mother. But even if you love me no matter what it still feels like this is something that could hurt you._

            That all felt too melodramatic, and not even quite what he meant. So he said “I just didn’t want you to have to worry.”

            She hugged him tighter.

            “I love you,” she said. She paused, and then said, “He’s being nice, isn’t he?”

            “Ugh, mom,” Patrick said.

            And it really wasn’t that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, thanks for reading, first and foremost. Sorry this wasn't very fun or magic, but got way too personal. Still, happy pride month! More weird emotional gay stuff under this, if you want to stick around.
> 
> So obviously this is fiction, but a lot of these stories were based on experiences I've had which sounds more mopey than I mean it to because I know I've been very privileged. I grew up pretty sheltered in one of the most liberal towns I've ever heard of. The first party I took my then-girlfriend to with my high school friends involved us all watching But I'm A Cheerleader and sitting around and talking about our first gay experiences. And there were still times where people would make comments, but it wasn't that bad. Still, I've obviously had my own issues and the world at large has even more to contend with. And this whole note isn't coming out nearly as articulate as I wished it would, but I guess the point is this-- I'm grateful for the world I get to live in, and that it's the best time within recent history to be gay, but I still want more. And I'm grateful that I grew up with Fall Out Boy existing and defending gay rights before it was cool to do so. They're four of the best straight allies I could hope for, so I'm thankful to them and wanted to do even just this small thing for pride month in my own miniscule way of contributing to the community, and really trying to emphasize that this isn't the kind of relationship I just want to fetishize.   
> So, hopefully that was coherent, and thank you again for reading, and happy pride!!!!


	3. Service Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody's looking forward to the 12 hour flight back to LA, and everyone's nervous about security. Joe has a plan.

            They delayed the flight home as long as they reasonably could. It wasn’t like they really wanted to stay in Chile and watch TV that they couldn’t understand while looking over their shoulders all the time, but Patrick wasn’t exactly in prime condition for a nearly twelve-hour flight. Ideally, his bandages would have been changed every six hours, and that wouldn’t be remotely possible. Maneuvering through an airport with a boot like his was sure to be difficult too. The dilemma then was between an extreme desire to get home and a want not to suffer through a flight that long.

            “I can just double up bandages on the worst ones,” Patrick said. “I don’t think I’m going to bleed through all my clothes on one flight.

            Patrick never seemed to want to have these planning conversations. He glared to the side, not meeting anyone’s eyes, and he held himself stiffly.

            “I think the issue is more of the wor-wounds getting infected,” Joe said.

            They had picked up on one tick more than anything else in Patrick. He didn’t like talking about the details. Because he had to, he acknowledged that he was injured. He told them all he could remember about the egrigors and their plan, anything that might help. But when it came to what had happened to him, what they had done, he was remarkably silent. Joe and Andy thought it might have just been them, but Pete privately admitted that Patrick hadn’t told him anything either. They could see the cuts and the burns, Pete especially, as he had nominated himself for all bandage changing duties. They could see the broken ankle and sprained wrist and rope burn and the way he winced when he inhaled too fast and the injuries all over his face, less pronounced when they first saw him, but now painfully obvious.

            Patrick looked, if anything, worse. They hadn’t seen them the first day, but now he was clearly covered in bruises, dark and ugly purple splotches covering his skin. His face looked nearly as swollen as his wrist, and some of the less angry rope burns around his wrists and ankles had begun to scab over in black. Joe couldn’t really remember seeing someone look worse.

            But even so, Joe wondered what all they couldn’t see. What the egrigors had said to him, and what all the words meant. They were insults, obviously, but Joe didn’t exactly try to read them. He saw some of them, out of the corner of his eye when Pete asked him or Andy to help with something (it almost always ended up being that Patrick asked for Andy and got Joe, because Andy couldn’t stand being inundated with the smell of so much blood. Joe tried not to be hurt that he was never asked for, and that Patrick tried not to look scared of Joe. He didn’t want to know why, he didn’t want to know why any of this was happening the way it was) but he didn’t keep a running list. He did notice some things, though. A couple of the words repeated in the cuts and the burns. The cuts generally seemed meaner than the burns, but Joe may have been imagining that.

            All this was off-limits for discussion, so Joe thought about it only to himself. As it was, Patrick still scowled at his near slip up, but shrugged.

            “If we change the bandages right before we go to the airport and right after we get back in LA, I’m only missing one,” he said. “I doubt six hours is enough to kill me of blood poisoning.” He paused. “I’m also still not opposed to trying Antarctica.”

            Joe, with a lot of self-control, didn’t groan.

            “That’s out of the question,” he said. “Prop planes aren’t exactly the most accommodating.”

            “I have a broken leg, not a broken spine,” Patrick snapped.

            “It’s not just that,” Pete said. “Come on, let’s please just go home. The continent isn’t going anywhere.”

            Patrick huffed out a sigh.

            “Guess we can miss one change of bandages,” Joe said. “I wish there was more we could about security.”

            The whole band could easily guess that he wasn’t talking about the security provided by the record label.

            “Actually,” Pete said after a minute. “I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’re going to like it.”

 

            Joe trotted into the airport, feeling like an idiot, but also kind of enjoying himself. It was a little freeing to wander around inside an international airport totally naked, even if he was covered in fur. He barked at passers-by and ran circles around the band at times, happy to stretch his legs.

            Of course, some people looked at him with a little bit of trepidation. Joe was definitely a wolf and not a dog, and at least a few people n the airport knew the difference. He could easily hear the nervous mutters of “Oh God, is that…?” coming from all sides.

            After yapping particularly loudly at a mad who rolled his eyes at the sight of them, Andy tugged on his leash. Joe growled as he fell back. He hated wearing a collar. It felt deviant.

            “Down, boy,” Andy said. He was clearly fighting back a smile.

            Joe heeled, walking a little closer to the rest of the band. The members of the group that weren’t in Fall Out Boy were taking all of this very much in stride. All Joe could hope was that no one at the airport was waiting to take paparazzi photos of the band. He didn’t want a ton of photos of the rest of his band with a wolf showing up. No one would guess the truth, but still.

            “This is stupid,” Patrick said under his breath, but he chuckled a litte. Joe turned his head up at him, tongue lolling out. Patrick was smiling a little looking at him, which was even better than the security benefits.

            Speaking of security, TSA was staring between Joe and Patrick in a state of utter disbelief. Pete took the leash from Andy and walked right up to the gate with Joe at his side. Pete paused in front of the metal detector, and Joe sat back on his haunches.

            “Sir,” the agent in front of the metal detector said, a look of disbelief clear on her face. “You can’t bring a- what is-?”

            “Surely you would let a man bring his service dog with him,” Pete said. He held a hand to his chest, putting on an affronted face. His voice was just a little too sweet, and the agent looked suddenly dazed.

            “Of course,” she said. “Um, just have your, ah, dog go through the metal detector first.”

            Pete beamed at the agent, and he and Joe walked through the metal detector and deeper into the airport. Patrick stayed close to him, and Joe brushed up against him from time to time.

            All of them sat down in front of their gate like it was the most normal thing in the world. Joe jumped up on one of the seats and sat back, tilting his head up and trying to act like a normal dog.

            “You’re conspicuous,” Patrick said. He was absently scratching Joe behind the ears, though, and it felt nice. He missed being able to talk, but he kind of liked the way people looked warily at him, tugging their children along past him. He could feel nerves coming from Patrick through the pack bond, and a little bit of pain, in spite of his medication, but he was still holding himself together. Joe nudged Patrick with his head, and Patrick leaned on him.

            Joe felt vaguely like Patrick liked him better as a wolf, but especially while he wasn’t human, he didn’t feel too bummed about it.

            Some of the passers by also did double takes looking at Patrick, given that he looked like Edward Norton halfway through Fight Club, but they all seemed too polite to say anything. Those that would be tempted, well, Joe figured he could be a little more wolfish for a good cause.

            They had priority boarding and first class seats, so they were some of the first to get on. Predictably, as they did, the flight attendant gasped and held out his hand.

            “Sir, you can’t bring him on here,” he said. Pete paused and held eye contact with him.

            “Why not? Couldn’t I bring a service dog on board with me?” he asked. Joe saw a vague golden glow, and the flight attendant blinked, then nodded.

            “Of course, I’m so sorry, sir,” he said. He beckoned them forward, seemingly not at all shocked to see that Pete was carrying a ticket for Joe, and that Joe sat down in the big, comfortable first class seat. Joe nudged his nose against the button to make the seat recline, than stretched out contentedly across the seat and its footrest. He rested his head on his front paws, and snorted.

            “We’re going to get in so much trouble,” Patrick said. He looked delighted about it. Joe stretched out and relaxed as the other passengers boarded. Pete and Patrick talked quietly to each other, and while they were still boarding, Andy called home briefly, his voice softening as he spoke to Carmilla. In spite of the universal hatred they had for airplanes, it was the calmest all of them had been in days. Of course, Pete and Patrick were a little bit stoned in preparation for the flight, Patrick for pain and Pete for anxiety. But still.

            A woman shrieked next to Joe’s ear, and he jumped to his feet, hackles raised. He growled a little, and she gasped, stumbling backward.

            “Sir!” she cried. “That’s a- that is a wolf!”

            “This is my service dog,” Patrick said. She shook her head, terrified.

            “That is a wild wolf!” she insisted.

            “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to take your seat and stop bothering these people,” the flight attendant said, one hand on her elbow. He led her down the aisle, then turned back to the band.

            “I’m so sorry about that, sirs,” he said. “I promise she won’t bother you for the rest of the flight. Can I get you or your dog anything?”

            Joe realized with dismay that he couldn’t order alcohol as a wolf, and let out a huff while Andy assured the flight attendant that they were fine. He was going to get roaring drunk when they landed back in LA.

            The worst thing, Joe thought, was that he couldn’t be properly restrained during takeoff. Typically, he realized, people didn’t travel with dogs, and when they did they were small and kept in carriers. While the plane taxied around the airport, Joe curled up small in his seat and whined, and Patrick put on hand under the collar he had worn for the trip, the other on Joe’s back, and held him all through takeoff. The pressure change felt weird in a different body, but once they were up in the sky, it wasn’t that bad.

            “So,” a man across the aisle cleared his throat and spoke up about an hour into their flight. “Erm, what breed of dog is that?”

            He clearly thought, correctly, that Joe was a wolf, but Patrick smiled blandly. People were trying to avoid Patrick’s eyes as well, given how obviously he had been injured, but Patrick, out of stubbornness, insisted on being the mouthpiece for the four of them whenever possible.

            “He’s a husky mix,” Patrick said. His voice still sounded ragged and used, and the stranger in the fancy suit flinched away from them.

            “Ah,” he said, his voice unnaturally high. “Mm, a husky mixed with what?”

            Patrick’s injured mouth twitched.

            “A larger, angrier husky,” he said. “Um, sorry, kidding. A malamute.”

            “He’s brown.”

            “Yeah, well, not all malamute’s look like sled dogs.”

            “He has… very odd eyes.”

            “The better to see you with,” Patrick said. Another bland smile, a flash of his dark eyes. The man across the aisle blanched and turned his face back down to his book. Joe growled a little through his teeth.

            “Down, Joe,” Patrick said, which seemed a little hypocritical to Joe. He scratched behind his ears, and when Joe started to pant, unable to control the happy reaction, Patrick laughed.

            “Good doggy,” he said. Joe was too content to protest.

            About three hours into the flight, Joe realized that they had not thought this plan through thoroughly at all. For example, how was he, a wolf, supposed to piss on an airplane? Or ask for water, or food? Being a dog, he realized, would be absolutely terrible. He had a lot of sympathy for the animals all of a sudden. He had no autonomy.

            Joe started pawing at Pete’s chest. Pete looked down at him, alarmed, and Joe whined.

            “Oh, Jesus, what do you want?” Pete asked. His eyebrows were pushed together in deep concern. “Ah, God, can you read like that? I could write down some possible options?”

            Joe snarled at him.

            “What is it, Lassie?” Patrick asked. “Is Timmy stuck in a well?”

            As soon as Patrick recovered, Joe decided, he was going to kill him.

            Still, he pawed at Pete’s chest again and jerked his head towards the front of the plane and the lit up bathroom sign. Pete made a face.

            “Okay, yeah,” he said. “Whose service dog are you again?”

            Joe pressed his paw very gently into Patrick’s thigh. Patrick nodded and heaved himself up onto his feet. He took a second to steady himself, and Joe felt a vague echo of pain run through one of his back legs as Patrick rested weight on his ankle again, but the sensation passed after a minute.

            Patrick took hold of Joe’s leash and led him up to the restroom, locked the door behind him, then paused.

            “How on God’s green earth do you plan on doing this?” he asked after a moment. Joe nudged Patrick with his nose until Patrick turned around, then shifted back into his human self.

            “Stay facing the other way, alright?” Joe said. Patrick flinched, gripping the wall with one hand.

            “Jesus, you could warn a guy,” he said. “Fuck fuck fuck, can I just-? Eyes?”

            Right, because Joe was an idiot. He let one hand drape across his crotch in a position he hoped looked casual, then said “Yeah, turn around.”

            Patrick turned back, and his face relaxed minutely as he stared into Joe’s eyes.

            “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done with a guy in an airplane, and I’m dating Pete,” he said. Joe wrinkled up his nose.

            “Way too much information,” he said. Patrick turned back around and inhaled deeply. Joe, though fully aware of how awkward the moment was, kept talking while he pissed and washed his hands.

            “Um, is it better or worse if I keep talking?” he asked.

            Patrick sighed, almost a laugh.

            “I have no idea,” he said. “Um, maybe both. I can’t see your eyes, but you don’t sound like him.”

            This wasn’t the time at all, but Joe couldn’t help himself.

            “Was mine the worst or something?”

            Patrick shrugged.

            “No, again, not exactly. I mean, maybe, but… I didn’t expect it from him, if that makes sense.”

            “So, I’m not scary?”

            “I don’t know,” Patrick sounded frustrated, but he was actually talking. “Like. Yeah, I guess. Andy’s a vampire, and Pete was-”

            “Pete,” Joe agreed.

            “And it’s more than that,” Patrick said. “It’s also- he did the most-” Patrick didn’t finish the sentence.

            “Did the most damage?” Joe asked.

            “Maybe not the most,” Patrick said. “But more than I expected. Can we go back to our seats? I’m not sure what medical condition I’m faking, but if we hang out here for much longer, it’ll be weird.”

            “It’s already weird,” Joe argued. “You’re talking to your dog. Sign of impending madness.”

            “Ruh-roh, Scooby” Patrick said flatly, and Joe snorted before shifting back into his wolf form.

            Back at their seats, Joe tried to sleep for much of the flight. It worked some of the time, but it was a long flight, and a lot of the time he was bored out of his mind. He stared at the screen Pete was watching, but even though he was still him as a wolf, certain things didn’t work the same way as when he was human. He couldn’t make sense of the pictures flashing across the screen, and since he didn’t have headphones to hear what was happening in any case, there was nothing much to follow. At some point, he had to get up with Patrick to piss, since they were still working with the service dog routine, and Patrick had taken him to the bathroom the last time. Joe politely faced the wall, but the process of something as simple as going to the bathroom sounded painful to him.

            A little while after the sun rose -- a slow and really pretty process while flying West, because they were moving from the rising sun and it took so much time to move up in the sky -- a little girl walked up to their row and stood next to Pete in the aisle. She bit her lip, and rocked back and forth on her heels, glanced nervously behind her at the economy section of the plane. Joe nudged his wet nose into Pete’s arm until he looked up at her.

            “Oh, hey,” Pete said. He looked startled. “Um, do you need any help, sweetie?”

            “Can I pet your dog?” she asked in a hushed voice. Pete bit back laughter and glanced at Joe.

            “You’ll have to ask him,” Pete said. “His name is Joe.”

            “Can I pet you, Joe?” the little girl asked. Joe lifted his head off his paws, and very deliberately stuck his head out to her, bent down slightly. She stroked her hand through his fur and giggled.

            “He’s soft,” she said.

            “He washes his hair a lot,” Andy said. She beamed at them.

            “I gotta go back to my mom,” she said. “But your dog is cute!”

            “Hear that?” Pete said after she walked away. “She thinks you’re cute.”

            “It’s only because she’s never lived with him,” Patrick teased. Joe leaned his head back down on his paws and rolled his eyes.

 

            After the single longest flight Joe had ever been on in his life, he was led by Patrick into a bathroom at the airport with a bundle of clothes, where he changed back into a human. He came out stretching out his neck and groaning.

            “Never again,” he said. “Fuck me, I’m never gonna be able to stand up straight again.”

            “Weren’t your transformations twelve hours long when you were first turned?” Pete asked.

            “Yeah, but then I could run,” Joe said. “Also, I’m not 12 anymore.”

            “Old man,” Patrick said. “You’re gonna turn into the old golden retriever in Homeward Bound.”

            “Fuck you, you had fun,” Joe said. Patrick snorted.

            “A little, yeah,” he said.

            All of them had. Which wasn’t going to cure everything, but helped a little bit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this one in mind forever, and I hope you guys liked it! I've got another drabble about 1/2 done, and I'm hoping that'll go up soon. I just have a lot of feelings surrounding the egrigor torture/aftermath, and not all of them fit naturally in the chapter, haha.


	4. Scarlet and Crimson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the immediate aftermath of Patrick being taken by egrigors, Pete helps him clean his wounds. Everything is red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like if you follow the story enough to read the drabbles that you should know what warnings belong with a chapter like this, but, you know, warnings for copious amounts of blood. And for angst in abundance.

            Pete was trying to stay calm.

            He envied AJ McLean greatly for his ability with auras. Aura manipulation was one of the most common skills that fae developed, but being that powerful and that good at it was rare. AJ was uncommonly good with auras, and unfortunately, Pete was uncommonly bad.

            He _could_ manipulate auras. If he was focused, centered, he could pull at a tiny sliver of pale blue calm in a person's aura and draw on it, tug it out like a loose thread and expand it. But for this skill he needed to be incredibly stable, and to see the emotion he was looking for in a person's aura at all.

            Pete was rarely stable, and this day even less so than usual. Worse, he couldn't see any blue at all in Patrick's aura. It was all angry, rashy red/yellow, pain and fear and nothing else. It was overwhelming just to be next to. Rather than Pete changing Patrick's aura, Patrick was affecting his. The red-hot, crimson colored pain in his aura was contagious.

             So, Pete was going to have to try soothing him the human way. Almost as difficult. He didn't even know how to start.

            “Baby?” he whispered. Patrick flinched, but only a little. Pete swallowed. Patrick was draped in the downy comforter that had been, last time Pete was in the room, white, but was now a glistening shade of scarlet in almost floral patches. ( _Rorschach blotches_ , Pete thought to himself, a little inane, a little hysterical.) He wasn't all the way covered, but Pete had tugged the blanket around him before anyone came in so that he wasn't splayed out and naked all crucifixion style for everyone else to see.

            “Can you walk?” Pete asked at last.

            Patrick took so long to answer that Pete almost thought he hadn't heard, but eventually he spoke, his voice so raw it was barely recognizable. (But Pete would know him anywhere, no matter what he sounded like.)

            “Maybe,” Patrick said. “I don't- I can't put weight on my ankle.”

            That was a problem, but Pete was trying his damndest not to panic. He could do this, he could do this. If he could do NOTHING FUCKING ELSE, he could do this. He could help somewhere.

            But though he worked out a little, he really couldn't carry Patrick into the bathroom by himself, and the idea of forcing Patrick into boxers or something just for Joe to drop him in a shower would be comical if it weren't so awful.

            Pete got the whole modesty thing, much better than he had when he was younger. It was still damn inconvenient.

            “I'll help you up,” Pete said, sounding more certain than he felt. He pulled and Patrick scooted, their efforts combined getting him to the edge of the bed. Patrick eased his legs over the side, his left ankle horrifically swollen, blood running in red rivulets down his legs. Pete slung Patrick's arm around his shoulders, trying not to cringe as he felt blood begin to soak into his shirt. The blood was warm in some places, but Patrick’s skin was like ice, and he was shivering on top of everything else. They’d need to turn up the heat in the hotel room.

            “Do you want me to, like, count down to this? Or-?”

            “Just go,” Patrick said through gritted teeth. Pete slowly stood up, lifting Patrick up with him. He saw the pain before he heard it. Patrick’s aura surged with powerful red, and a moment later he groaned as he leaned on Pete. Pete supported him almost entirely for a moment, then slowly, painstakingly, Patrick put his right foot forward, and Pete could step up to him unhindered.

            The process of getting into the bathroom was exhausting. Pete could mostly hold Patrick up, but he had to put some weight on his broken ankle, and with every step on his left foot Pete was momentarily blinded by the angry red light of Patrick’s aura. Pete remembered, years ago, when Joe and Patrick had drunkenly trapped Bloody Mary in a bathtub full of diluted Holy Water, the demonic equivalent of acid. He had seen the pained light of her aura through the door, and in spite of how many people she had killed, in spite of her desire to kill Patrick and Joe, he couldn’t stand to see anything in that much pain.

            Patrick’s aura was worse than that.

            They were all the way in the bathroom before Pete realized, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that Patrick couldn’t stand in a shower. He could, Pete supposed, sit on the floor of the bath, but Pete would be far pressed to ever be able to help him up again.

            Patrick, as usual, displayed an ability to seemingly read Pete’s mind.

            “Why don’t I stay here,” Patrick suggested, his voice alarmingly faint, “And you go get a chair. We don’t have to worry about affording the damages or anything.”

            Pete just stared at him. Where was he supposed to leave him in the meantime? Patrick sighed, and made a big show of moving out of Pete’s arms and leaning on the counter with his elbows. He ran out of breath quickly, his aura slowly spreading as he struggled to hold himself straight.

            “You may want to hurry,” he said. His voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible.

            Pete rushed into the bedroom and pulled the chair at the desk out and ran it back into the bathroom. It was a heavy chair, but he heaved it up and over the side of the tub, then caught Patrick under his arms so that Patrick could sag into him. Pain flared even when he wasn’t holding himself up, and Patrick whined as he leaned against Pete.

            “It hurts,” he whispered.

            “I know,” Pete said. “Almost there, baby, I swear.”

            “Eyes?” Patrick said. Fuck, they weren’t facing each other, but Pete craned his neck so that Patrick could see his eyes.

            “It’s me,” Pete said. Patrick nodded, and some of the fear drained out of his aura again.

            The distance from the center of the bathroom to the chair in the tub was small enough that Pete could lift Patrick into, even if it hurt, Patrick’s fingers digging deep into Pete’s shoulders.

            “I know, I know,” Pete said. “Hey, almost there, yeah?”

            Patrick nodded into Pete’s shoulder. Patrick wasn’t even as heavy as Pete had thought he would be, holding him up to his chest. Pete set him as gently as he could into the chair, and Patrick let out a long, deep breath when he finally sat down.

            “Where’s it hurt the most?” Pete asked. Patrick stared Pete down with a derisive look on his face, and Pete nodded.

            “Okay, just thought I’d ask,” he said. “Okay, so, I’ll just set the water pressure really low and start by rinsing the blood off with some really warm water, because you’re absolutely freezing-”

            “No,” Patrick said. Pete was trying hard not to get impatient with Patrick, but here he huffed.

            “Why?” Pete pleaded. He half-sat on the edge of the tub, watching as blood dripped sluggishly down Patrick’s chest and legs. There was hardly a point in being modest about his dick, Pete thought, given that it was covered in blood. Patrick looked like the climax of Carrie.

            “Not- not hot water,” Patrick said. He spoke so softly that Pete had to lean in to hear him. “The burns, it’ll- it’ll hurt.”

            Pete wished he could lie, or that he at least had better news to give Patrick.

            “This is all gonna hurt, baby,” Pete whispered. Patrick gritted his teeth, still staring at the floor.

            “I know that,” he said. “The burns are everywhere.”

            “Would you prefer cold water?” Pete asked.

            “No!” Patrick said. “No, I just. Fuck, do whatever. Let’s get this over with.”

            Pete shouldn’t be there. He was terrible in a crisis and was probably only there because he had already seen Patrick undressed, so Patrick could stand him better than anyone else. His chest ached at the thought.

            He just hated this. He hated feeling useless, hated being useless. He couldn’t stand to look at Patrick when he was suffering, couldn’t look away and stop helping. But he’d not seen this much pain before, and to see it on Patrick… he was going to hold himself together. For once in his fucking life, Pete was going to fall apart later, when it was convenient to.

            The problem (one of many problems, really) was that he wasn’t used to Patrick like this. Patrick was stoic in times of crisis. Patrick admitted his insecurities and freaked out at bedtime, and in the morning was back to standing tall and fighting monsters. Even when they’d been trapped in the Drake, when Patrick was nearly dead from blood loss, he’d still managed to protect Pete, stake the vampires coming from behind. Patrick was always solid, always held both of them together.

            Seeing Patrick this helpless made Pete feel more unhinged than he had since he was in high school and on the brink of mental collapse. But this time, there was someone he had to hold it together for.

            So, Pete fought back the wave of hysteria inside him, and turned on the tap for the tub. Once the water was warm, not hot, but just warm to the touch, Pete dappled some of the drops on Patrick’s wrist, above the injury. Patrick startled, but didn’t flinch, didn’t grow more pained.

            “Is that good?” Pete asked. Patrick nodded, keeping intense eye contact with Pete all the while.

            “So, it’ll be faster if I turn on the shower,” Pete said. “But I can get a washcloth and be gentler if you want?”

            Patrick made a face as he weighed the options in his head. He seemed to make his decision when he glanced down at his ankle, red and so swollen you could hardly see his foot.

            “We can try the shower first?” his whisper was hoarse.

            “Okay,” Pete said. He tried to ease the transition, but nothing could slow the sudden burst of water out of the showerhead. Pete thought he was braced for anything, but Patrick screamed, lurching forward and slamming his hands against the walls of the shower.

            “Baby, baby, baby,” Pete pleaded. He swung his legs into the tub as well and grabbed Patrick’s face. Patrick stopped screaming quickly, but he still whimpered. “Okay, fuck, do you want me to turn it off?”

            “No,” Patrick growled. “I can handle it.”

            His aura said otherwise, but Pete knew better than to disagree. Now that they were both a little soaked, Pete stayed close to Patrick. Already he looked slightly better, just with water running over his head. The bathtub was soon running red as the water washed off the blood. Soon most of the blood that hadn’t dried on was rinsed away, and Pete could see some of Patrick’s skin again.

            Possibly because he was stalling, and possibly because his hair really had looked filthy, Pete grabbed a bottle of shampoo next. Patrick’s hair was wet by then, so all Pete did was tell Patrick to tilt his head back. He massaged probably more shampoo than he needed to into Patrick’s hair, being as thorough as he could without being rough. He’d never shampooed anyone else’s hair before, but it felt absurdly intimate. Patrick made, for the first time since they’d seen him, a happy noise. One soft hum in the back of his throat as he leaned his head into Pete’s hands, and a sliver of blue emerged in his aura. Pete wished they could have gone forever, could have stayed like that until Patrick felt better and could just fall asleep, but eventually all the soap was rinsed a few times over from Patrick’s head, and Pete had to move onto the hard part.

            “I'm gonna start cleaning you off, okay?” Pete said. Patrick sucked in a deep breath and nodded, and Pete started dabbing a wash cloth across Patrick's shoulder. He sponged off the blood that had already dried there, exposing the thin but deep lines of cuts underneath. Pete went about the process as methodically as possible while Patrick held very still and made the occasional pained noise. After very gently rubbing the excess blood off the wound, Pete soaped up the washcloth and went over it again. There was a sharp intake of breath from Patrick when Pete went over the wound with soap, but he didn't scream again. Pete did it one word at a time rather than letter by letter, but somehow he didn't read them. The words wouldn't stick in his brain, and he didn't want them to.

            He finished the first few cuts that were close together, making up some word or another, then, with no bandages on hand to wrap it up with, simply moved onto the next clump of wounds that sat close together, the next word.

            This time when Pete re-angled the water, Patrick did scream, his hand shooting out and clamping down on Pete's thigh. His face was screwed up in pain, and Pete could feel the hurt exuding from him. He could see his aura and feel it, red everywhere, overwhelming both of them. Pete was struck with a burning sensation that had nothing to do with the barely warm water showering over both of them.

            “God,” Pete said. His throat was thick, like he was crying, like he had any right to be crying when it wasn’t him that- “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry, are you-?”

            “It’s fine!” Patrick lied through gritted teeth. “It’s fucking fine, it just _burns_!”

            Pete looked closer at the wound he was rinsing methodically. It was bleeding, he saw, but barely. Droplets of blood oozed out in a few places, but by and large it was just an angry, shiny pink color. A little more swollen than the skin around it. Burnt into him.

            Pete had read a little about scarification before. Tattoos were, by and large, just one facet of a large culture of body modification. Certain tools, Pete knew, could be used to leave intricate brands. Brands. The word echoed in his head. Patrick had been branded. There were certainly some people who still burnt designs into themselves for fun, of their own accord, but it was hard to hold onto that logical thought. Brands were for cattle. Pete turned down the shower so it wasn’t aimed directly at him or Patrick, then turned the water to cold. He wet the washcloth with cool water and pressed it down to the cluster of burns.

            “I’m sorry,” Pete whispered again. He didn’t look at Patrick’s eyes. He didn’t really look at the burns either. It was as though he had elected to stop seeing.

            “No,” Patrick murmured. He sighed as Pete held the cool washcloth against the word. “No, that feels good.” He shivered. “Can I-? I’m still so thirsty.”

            Pete dropped the washcloth automatically and stood up. There was a plastic cup in a wrapper on the sink, and Pete felt, for the first time, almost grateful that they were in a hotel that provided stupid, useless amenities like that. He ripped off the wrapping and filled it with water from the sink, hoping very much that the public water quality in Santiago was better than in cities back home.

            He handed the cup to Patrick, still dripping with water and shivering because right, shit, Pete couldn’t do anything right. He grabbed one of the towels hanging above the toilet and draped it over Patrick’s shoulders. He wasn’t done washing out the cuts, there were so many of them, but Patrick shivered a little less violently. He gave Pete a face that was trying hard to be a smile, drained about half the glass, and then as he was lowering the cup, shuddered yet again and dropped it to the floor of the bathtub, spilling water everywhere.

            “Sorry!” Patrick gasped. “I’m sorry, I can’t-”

            “Don’t worry,” Pete said. He grabbed the cup and threw it back on the counter and sat next to Patrick again. “I got it, don’t worry.” He reached his hand up to Patrick’s face, cupping his cheek, but Patrick instantly flinched away. Pete’s heart thudded uneasily.

            “How many are left?” Patrick asked.

            “I’ve only done two,” Pete said. Patrick looked like he was going to cry again, but instead he nodded, and shrugged off the towel.

            Pete kept at it with Patrick for a while. After the first try, he decided to focus on cuts first and then dab off the burns with a cold cloth later. Of course, this was good in theory, but in practice the warm water kept running down over the burns, setting Patrick’s fluorescent, crimson aura to throbbing again.

            After he had washed everything on the front of Patrick, Pete angled the water a little higher and shifted down the edge of the bathtub to start working on his back. He started on the one highest on his neck, just barely low enough to be covered by a shirt, Pete hoped, though the edge of the word might peak out. He rubbed the washcloth across it, gently scraping away some of the more stubborn, dried out blood, and then he paused.

            There was no good reason that this word should give him pause, but enough time had passed that he had settled into a routine, the initial horror no longer protecting him. In a big, wide scrawl, the word said “IDIOT,” angry and red and dripping.

            Pete looked over Patrick’s shoulder, finally seeing through the haze of scarlet aura. The cuts he had washed, they read “FAT” and “WEAK” and “ANNOYING.” Pete’s vision felt red, unrelated to the blood, nothing to do with Patrick’s aura.

            “These are insults,” he whispered, and Patrick jerked forward, farther from Pete.

            “Believe it or not, I noticed,” Patrick hissed. Pete’s hands were shaking. He finished cleaning up “IDIOT,” feeling hot all over, and moved down to the huge word underneath it. This word was bigger than all the others, deeper, so bloody it was black at the center, and ragged in a way that none of the other cuts were.

            “MINE.”

            It was between his shoulder blades. There was no way Patrick could see this one, gory and chunky with loose flesh as well as blood. It made Pete want to gag, and he couldn’t help but suspect that this message had been left for him.

            “What did they _do_ to you?” Pete whispered. Patrick shook, almost a convulsion.

            “If you don’t want to do this,” he said, “then leave.”

            “No!” Pete said. “I’m sorry, I just- what _is_ this?”

            “I don’t know,” Patrick said. He was shivering again, and Pete did his best to get as close to Patrick as possible without irritating the cuts. “I don’t- it was loud. Something electric, I think. It sounded like a power tool.”

            Late, late at night, Pete had gone looking at gore videos buried deep on the internet. The wounds Patrick had almost looked similar to-

            “Electric screwdriver?” Pete asked. Patrick shrugged, then winced.

            “I don’t know,” he said. “Can you- can you please just-?”

            Pete went back to cleaning, as best he could. He avoided “MINE” altogether, because it was so deep, he didn’t want to make everything worse.

            Pete also washed off the cuts on Patrick’s wrists and ankles, or, he tried to, anyway. One wrist was fine, a little wincing, a little stinging, and a slight flare in his aura. But the other wrist was bent at an improbable angle, and Patrick yanked it away from Pete when Pete tried to dab at it. The same problem arose with his ankles, one of them easy to clean out and treat the tender, rope burned skin, the other swollen and untouchable.

            It seemed to take forever, and they hardly talked at all. But Pete eventually cleaned out all the cuts and washed off the uninjured parts of Patrick’s skin, then wrapped a clean towel around his waist, and another over his shoulders. He moved Patrick over to the edge of the tub, and gently, hesitantly, wrapped his arm around Patrick. Patrick leaned in, pressing his face into Pete’s neck and breathing with shaky breaths.

            “It hurts,” he said.

            “I know,” Pete whispered. “I know.”

            He couldn’t even lie and tell Patrick that it would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this was great but reading over it as I edited made my soul feel??? Kind of like it was coated with maple syrup??? I can't explain why but this feels self-indulgent to an unreasonable extreme, especially for those into angst/hurt/comfort. Um, I guess what I'm saying is I'm not super proud of it??? but I couldn't really not post it. So I hope you enjoyed it. (also this originally had a happier ending but it felt forced so idk, maybe one day you'll see the alternate ending on tumblr or something)  
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Also also, a poll: is "damndest" a word? Google docs and I think so, Microsoft Word and AO3 think it is not)


	5. Cabin in the Woods

            The Witzigreuters’ little cottage house was absurdly warm and pleasant. There were multiple fireplaces in the house, and where there weren’t fireplaces, there were heavy candelabras, filling every room with warm, golden firelight. There were electric lights too, so as soon as Mrs. Witzigreuter let Patrick into the bathroom, he flipped those on as well. The more light, the better, as far as he was concerned.

            The bathroom, like the rest of the cabin, was a bit old fashioned, but still homey. Plain countertops, a bar of soap next to the faucet, and in the corner, a big, claw foot bathtub that was already filled with steaming water.

            “I hope you don’t mind, I already drew you the bath, dear,” Mrs. Witzigreuter said. “Our water heater is a little finicky out here, and it’s much more reliable for me to heat it up myself. I also infused it with a little bit of healing magic - nothing major, as I’m not a proper healer, but anything minor should seal itself up, and anything big should… well, it should feel better, it least.”

            Patrick wasn’t in the tub yet, but he already felt warmer all over.

            “That’s incredible,” he said. “I- thank you.”

            “Not at all, dear,” she said, and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “Towels are in the cupboard. And there’s a basket under the sink with different oils if you want to add anything. I didn’t do it myself because I know how boys can be about smelling good.” She rolled her eyes, but she looked quite fond as she left, the door clicking after her. Yet another thing to appreciate, Patrick thought. She didn’t hover.

            In truth, Patrick had never been much of a bath-taker. Always one for showers, and then, with all the stitches he’d had to contend with recently, taking a bath would just get so bloody that it seemed pretty disgusting. But it didn’t appear as though there was a shower in this house, so it would have to do.

            Stalling, slightly, Patrick opened the cupboard under the sink and found the finely woven basket she was referring to. It had jars with oil in them, some with gels and some with dried flowers, all carefully labeled by hand. Each of the jars listed the scents, colors, and magical properties that they would form in the bath, some of which were rather intriguing to read. There was a lavender oil that promised to turn the water a vibrant shade of purple and induce a drowsiness so powerful that it warned the user not to fall asleep in the tub. One was a vivid, poisonous shade of green that listed it’s magical property as bestowing “temporary snake-like reflexes” in the user.

            Ultimately, though, he put in a soft blue oil to make the the water smell like the ocean and “banish all fears,” and sprinkled on top some of the dried flowers with a label that said “quell anxieties.”

            Patrick was still pretty anxious and afraid, so hopefully those along with the minor healing spell would make him feel better. Maybe even functioning for whatever else the night would throw at them. By the time he had poured in the oil, scattered the flowers, and slowly, painfully stripped off his wet clothes, the bath was still steaming. It was hard to maneuver into the large tub with his broken ankle, but he heaved his good leg over the side and eased his way in.

            As he slid into the silky water, Patrick let out a loud groan. The water was hot, almost but not quite painfully so. And whatever the magic in it was, Patrick could feel it working immediately. His leg was still throbbing, but it felt quieter as he slid down into the tub, so deep that the water easily went all the way up to his shoulders. He inhaled the ocean-and-flower scent and closed his eyes, letting himself soak.

            The magic was easy to feel as well, he realized. He couldn’t have been soaking for more than a minute before he felt lighter, not just because he could nearly float in the tub, but because he felt less afraid. The egrigors were still out there in the forest, he knew, but somehow they didn’t seem so scary. They had had their fun with him, hadn’t they? He was safe now, and he didn’t feel afraid. He just felt sleepy, a little hungry. His leg still hurt if he focused on it, but mostly now he simply felt airy and light.

            In spite of the fact that he hadn’t used the lavender oil that put people to sleep, he felt sleepy very quickly. He had initially planned on waiting until the water went cold, but as the time slipped by, he started to realize that the water was never going to stop being the perfect temperature. So, instead, once his eyelids started drifted shut in a way that made him feel like it would be hard to get them open again, he reluctantly pulled him out of the bathtub. He wrapped himself up in more than one towel, because the Witzigreuters had been very accommodating, sure, but they were also the cause of the mud pit and the enormous tidal wave that had put Patrick into the hands of the egrigors. So, for that reason, he wasn’t going to feel guilty for wrapping one towel around his waist and the rubbing his hair with another.

            He only realized after he was wrapped in fluffy towels that his clothes were sopping and freezing, and he was almost more willing to walk back out naked than put them back on, but with a sudden sense of curiosity, he pulled the door open just a crack. Lying right outside was a small pile of pajamas, which he dragged into the bathroom. The pajamas wouldn’t fit him perfectly, but they would do.

            Dressed in someone else’s clothes, clean and warm, he walked out feeling better than he had in days, if he was honest with himself. And even though he knew, he knew he should have stayed in the living room, found out more about this strange family, or gone out looking for his band, he eagerly took up the offer to limp upstairs and lay down in a bed for a while.

            There was no need for Patrick to dwell on his problems. When the time came, his problems would surely seek him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this probably didn't even deserve its own chapter but i just. really like writing about baths. I'm a huge slut for lush. that's all.


	6. One Night and One More Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Not Pete lurks by him in the real world, Patrick dreams of Chicago long enough to finally say goodbye.

            Patrick didn’t slide into the nightmare first, not this night. He hadn’t in the dungeon cell either, he had just looked around to bright sunlight. Admittedly, the more time he spent in his dreamscape, the stranger it got to be in a version of Chicago that was entirely empty. It was a little like The Stand, he thought, not that he’d ever read the book, but the old TV special his mom liked to watch when Patrick was supposed to already be in bed. Cities that hadn’t been damaged by war, but were completely empty.

            Patrick supposed he was being needlessly morbid. It wasn’t like he was really losing Chicago again, not quite. He was just saying goodbye, for now. He could come back to the city, he could.

            He probably wouldn’t, though. Not so long as it was making Pete sad.

            Patrick would’ve been upset too, if it were Pete. Actually, he would’ve been furious. He wasn’t cheating, not really, but still, if Pete were off spilling his guts to Jeanae and snuggling up to her, well. It didn’t look good.

            “Chicago?” Patrick called. The name burnt in his chest, and he felt the overwhelming sense that he was making a mistake.

            “Hey, Patrick.”

            Chicago’s voice came from behind him, but it didn’t make Patrick jump the way anyone else did. His chest kept aching, and he turned around. He could look at Chicago, all warm brown eyes and soft hair and smile all day and never get tired of seeing him.

            “Hey,” Patrick said. He smiled up at Chicago, but his heart wasn’t in it. He should be treasuring this time, but his heart was aching prematurely. “Um. I’m glad you’re here.”

            “You weren’t having a nightmare,” Chicago said. “I’m glad.”

            “Me too,” Patrick said, not adding that he was already sure it wouldn’t last long. “I want to talk to you.”

            “About Pete?” Chicago asked. Patrick looked up at him, suddenly confused.

            “How did you know?” he asked. Chicago shrugged, looking a little melancholy himself.

            “He was dreaming with you the other day,” Chicago said. Patrick, for his part, was stunned.

            “You might have warned me,” he said. Chicago shrugged again.

            “I was talking to you,” he said. “What would I have warned you about?”

            “It looked like we were- nevermind,” Patrick said. Chicago, Patrick decided, was a little too ‘free love’ to explain the concept of emotional infidelity to. “I’m glad you came tonight even though I’m not having a nightmare because I have to go… home.”

            Patrick chanced one glance at Chicago, his face not disappointed, but sad, before hurrying on.

            “I mean- look, Chicago- you, that is, you’ll always be my home. This city,” he said, “It’s home, physically. But I need to go back to my house in LA. With Pete.”

            “Yeah,” Chicago said. “I know.”

            “You know?” Patrick asked.

            “I don’t know every bad thing you think about yourself,” Chicago said. “But I know you know that you’re not a coward.”

            Patrick felt his will crumbling while he was there, in the warm dream-sunshine, Chicago standing so close to him.

            “I don’t feel brave,” he said. “I’m scared all the time, and I don’t want to leave. I think I’m just doing this to, I don’t know, make Pete feel better.”

            “No, you aren’t,” Chicago said. “And, well. If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, you’ve still done the right thing, haven’t you?”

            Patrick shrugged this time. He felt embarrassingly tearful but didn’t want to cry again. He’d already wasted so much time over the past few days crying.

            “Tell me again why it’s the right thing?” he asked. Chicago reached out, took Patrick’s face in his hands, and tilted it up to face him.

            “Because this isn’t real,” he said. “And you belong in the real world. Fighting monsters, saving the world, kissing Pete.”

            “Never had an ex so excited to see me with someone else,” Patrick said. Chicago laughed a little, and pressed their foreheads together.

            “I just want you to be happy,” he said. “Real happy. Not just… distracting yourself from sadness.”

            “How can you tell the difference?”

            “It probably starts when you don’t just spend your life waiting to fall back asleep,” Chicago said. Their faces were pressed together, but Patrick no longer felt like he was in any danger of kissing him. He just wanted to be touching someone, to be warm in the arms of someone who still thought of him as brave, as a hero.

            “We’re having a kid,” Patrick said. Chicago lit up.

            “A baby?” he said. “That’s fantastic!”

            “It’s kind of a funny story,” Patrick said.

            Chicago plopped down on the grass and patted the ground next to him.

            “Tell me all about it,” he said.

            The two of them talked all night once again. And, when Patrick felt the fuzziness that signified that he was waking up, he and Chicago joined hands once more.

            “I love you,” Chicago said.

            “I love you too,” Patrick said.

            And then he woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little needlessly sentimental (and hella late, I know, as a drabble for chapter four) but I wrote this and given how you all love chicago, I thought you'd want to see it too. I actually have quite a few drabbles in mind pertaining to chapter four, but... we'll see.


	7. All-Seeing in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan is basically omniscient, which makes it so much worse when he can't see some things.

            Ryan knew a little something about feeling guilty all the time. He could relate to Pete, the agony he must feel in relation to the egrigors. It wasn’t the same, of course, but Ryan still felt guilty all the time.

            He also wasn’t looking forward to descending into the basement of horrors. The jeers floating up felt more like something on the Goosebumps TV show than something that was actually happening in real life. Things this horrible didn’t exist. Friends who knew everything about you didn’t willfully turn that knowledge on you to dig at your deepest insecurities. But these things did.

            Ryan started walking immediately. He was terrified, but if he’d learned anything in all his years of magical bullshit, it was that putting off the inevitable only made everything worse.

            “Ryan-”

            “Ryan-”

            “Ryan!”

            “Ryan?”

            “You think by helping him you’ll make it any-”

            “Just like your father you’re going to-”

            “Kill everyone just like you killed-”

            “Shut up,” Ryan breathed, and he knew it was a mistake, he could tell from the laughter coming at him from all sides.

            “I’m sorry,” the girl behind him said. Ryan had already forgotten her name. Ryan didn’t bother lying to her to tell her it was okay, didn’t want to insult either of them like that. He walked into the center of the basement and looked around at all the feral faces.

            “Which was made first?” he asked. She stepped onto the cold, stone floor next to him, and pointed him further back. In a far corner, huddled against the bars, was Pete. He looked similar to the real Pete, upstairs, but he was proportionally wrong. His profile was off, his ears too pointed and his silhouette too jagged. He had his hands wrapped around his knees, looked like he was dying, but still he smiled up at them.

            “Ryan Ross,” he said, his voice hoarse. “The world’s worst oracle. I bet you didn’t see me coming?”

            Ryan didn’t respond. He walked closer to the bars, staring at the egrigor. There were more flaws, up close. His skin was poreless, his mouth a little too doll-like. The pallor of his skin was off too, not just pale, but silver-gray. He was Pete through a mirror, darkly.

            “Staring down on all of us like a scared God, aren’t you?”

            “Who’s in there?” Ryan asked, keeping his voice mild as possible.

            “It’s me, Pete Wentz, through and through,” the creature said. “She doesn’t like me because I look like the monster I am.”

            “You don’t look so monstrous to me,” Ryan said. Like he wasn’t scared out of his mind. Like the creature didn’t make him want to cry.

            “Will you indulge my curiosity?” it asked, still hidden in the shadows. “Your father. Did you see him die?”

            “I was on tour,” Ryan said. It was just trying to get to him, and Ryan would learn more, he knew, if he acted unaffected, if he let it poke and pry at him and stay cool. He just wished it didn’t sound like Pete.

            “But did you _see_ it?”

            He remembered it. Waking up in the middle of the night, screaming, already too late. It was bad enough that his band saw it, why should anyone else hear it? But he needed to know the extent of the creature, had to find out something, be useful somehow.

            “I did.”

            “How often does that happen, I wonder?” the not-Pete began to uncoil himself, standing up in the shadows. “How often do you see disaster you are powerless to do anything about?”

            “Like you?”

            “Like me,” he said. “How much do you help everybody, little superhero?”

            “Well, more than you,” Ryan said. “Tell me something in return. You talk big, but you can’t touch me. Why should I be scared of you?”

            The egrigor lunged at the bars with a clang, and Ryan fell backwards, nearly into the cage behind him. Pressed against the bars, he could see the egrigor’s face, his wide mouth full of sharp and ragged teeth and his slit nostrils, pointed ears and the unnatural tilt of his eyes.

            “Because I don’t look like the pretty boy,” it hissed. “I’m not a mirror of his face, but of his broken, rabid soul. Because I can tell you the truth, that the best thing about you is the singer-boy you who stands next to you. Because you were a failure of a son and a musician, and as your album sales taper off and your predictions grow obsolete, it reminds me of just how worthless an investment you were. I don’t need to be the oracle to see where you’ll end up - just a burnt out, empty husk of a druggie, rotting all alone and dying all alone, just like your namesake.”

            It spat at Ryan, a glob of thick red, blood mixed in with the spit. Ryan wiped the spit off, his heart hammering, but he looked up again.

            “So, the problem was he had no refinement?” he asked.

            “He was only anger,” Lauren said. “Which - that’s what I was going for, but he was too concentrated. And he didn’t look similar enough. And, well…”

            The creature flickered before falling backwards, panting as though exhausted.

            “Broken,” Ryan said. “Right.”

            _Just like your father_.

            “Show me the wards,” he said. “I think I’ve heard the worst of it. I already know what the real Pete think of me in a year or so, anyway, and this isn’t worse.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've got some feelings about panic at the disco and I'm going to subject all of you to them


End file.
